A collection of short stories by Ivan Raley

William shook hands with the cemetery director, they had finished their business, and he had purchased a plot for his use, picked out a marker for the grave, paid the funeral home and closed his business.

He still had some time, two months, maybe more, maybe not. The strange thing was that other than being weak he felt good, nothing hurt, no great pain, just the weakness. Still he knew that the course had been set and the clock was on its final drive toward stopping. His daughter and son would be grateful that he had made these arrangements; they would not have to go shopping on that sad day when goodbye would be necessary.

He walked around the grounds; they were well kept, the area he had chosen was all flat markers, difficult to tell one grave from the other unless you got close enough to look down at the marker. His wife had died while he was in the service as a young man; they had buried her with her parents in another city, another state, another place very far away.

He had visited her grave shortly after the doctor had given him the news of his own walk, but it was far from the children, far from what he called home so this would be the place. Unknowing to the children he had purchased enough area for all of their families to use it they wished, he would leave that to their decision.

He read the markers of old men living long into their nineties, and young children who never understood life but lived only briefly some just hours. He wondered about death, leaving, closing this life and walking into a new world unknown and unseen by him but made certain in his heart because of his love and commitment to Christ.

He wiped the tears from his eyes and remember when Jesus had wept, he was afraid, but yet he was settled, it would be alright for in his heart he knew that Jesus was there, that He had walked this way, wept tears for others and defeated the grave and opened its darkness to the light. William walked back to his car, he would not return here until others carried him, it was a good decision he had made this morning, it would all be alright. The tears flowed again, he paused, wiped them and said to Jesus, “I think I understand your weeping.”

Postlude:

I believe most of us think of these tears of our Lord as tears of compassion. His friends were weeping and He was moved by their sorrow. Certainly such is very likely; however, I believe there were some tears of sorrow on His part as He realized that it was not the Father’s plan for man to have to die. All of these tears and all of this sorrow came because of sin. Jesus Wept, certainly for the joint sorrow of His friends but also for His sorrow for man and the choice that we have all made that causes us to have to know the darkness of the grave and the sting of death. Not God’s plan, but the price for sin as we face the grave and its darkness. Our only hope is in Jesus and the sting of death that He removes and the darkness of the grave that He dispels as He opens the tomb and comes out into the sunlight.